A wireless LAN for a 100-employee law firm situated in a two-story office building.
The law office uses Windows 7 (64 bit) Operating System laptops running standard MS Office 2010 Products. The administrative staff uses the network to send e-mail, browse the Internet, run payroll, bookkeeping (Quickbooks), scheduling appointments, invoicing, creating legal documents, etc. The lawyers and legal aides mainly use the computers to search electronic law libraries to research legal cases from around the state and country, as well as some of the above administrative tasks (e.g. e-mail, web search, calendaring). One of the office staff currently maintains the computers and the 10BaseT LAN but is a novice. This limited support is an issue with the law firm.
A WAN linking a toy manufacturing plant (located in Dallas Texas) with two distribution centers (Los Angeles, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
The toy company has about a dozen old Windows 95 Operating System desktops running standard MS Office 95 products. The administrative staff uses the network to send e-mail, browse the Internet, run payroll, accounting, scheduling shipments, invoicing, human resources, and inventory management. The manufacturing facility has a rudimentary network running robotics. The equipment and protocols are obsolete, and the vendor is no longer in business. There is one IT person at the manufacturing facility that is an expert on keeping this old system running, but lacks any current technology experience.
A network for a customer support center with 50 employees, and 20 mobile users.
The customer support center is run by a medium size locally owned and operated cable company. The service area has a radius of 50 miles. The support center provides a range of services from troubleshooting equipment (Internet, TV, and phone) to answering billing questions. When solutions cannot be provided by the Tier 1 and 2 support center staff, the field technicians are contacted to provide Tier 3 support. The field support team is responsible for fixing issues in the customer's home and working with equipment vendors for Tier 4 support. The network is antiquated and needs to be replaced. The company has an excellent IT department with experienced staff.
As a consultant, you bring to the table standard methods and processes for developing the client solution. Your solution may be a general one with special emphasis on at least two TCOs addressed in the course.
Your client is requesting a written analysis (typed, double-spaced, 15-20 page limitation; this does not include appendices or the cover page). The format for this assignment will be further explained in the "NETW585 Network Design Project Evaluation Criteria" found in the Doc Sharing tab for this course.
Don't forget to cite your sources properly, both parenthetically and in your bibliography/works cited.